The Fall Of Atlantis

Chapter Five: WORDS

I

Beneath a trellised arbor of vines, near the House of the Twelve, lay a deep clear pool which was known as the Mirror of Reflection. Tradition held that once an oracle had stood here; and even now some believed that in moments of soul-stress the answer one's heart or mind most sought might be mirrored in the limpid waters, if the watcher had eyes to see.

Deoris, lying listlessly under the leaves, gazed into the pool in bitter rebellion. Reaction had set in; with it came fear. She had done sacrilege; betrayed Caste and Gods. She felt dreary and deserted, and the faint stab of pain in her body was like the echo and shadow of a hurt already half forgotten. Sharper than the memory of pain was a vague shame and wonder.

She had given herself to Riveda in a dreamy exaltation, not as a maiden to her lover, but in a surrender as complete as the surrender of a victim on the altar of a god. And he had taken her—the thought came unbidden—as a hierophant conducting an Acolyte into a sacred secret; not passion, but a mystical initiatory rite, all-encompassing in its effect on her.

Reviewing her own emotions, Deoris wondered at them. The physical act was not important, but close association with Domaris had made Deoris keenly conscious of her own motives, and she had been taught that it was shameful to give herself except in love. Did she love Riveda? Did he love her? Deoris did not know—and she was never to have more assurance than she had had already.

Even now she did not know whether his mystical and cruel initiatory passion had been ardent, or merely brutal.

For the time, Riveda had blotted out all else in her thoughts—and that fact accounted for the greater part of Deoris's shame. She had counted on her own ability to keep her emotions aloof from his domination of her body. Still, she told herself sternly, I must discipline myself to accept complete dominance; the possession of my body was only a means to that end—the surrender of my will to his.

With all her heart, she longed to follow the path of psychic accomplishment which Riveda had outlined to her. She knew now that she had always desired it; she had even resented Micon because he had tried to hold her back. As for Rajasta—well, Rajasta had taught Domaris, and she could see the result of that!

She did not hear the approaching steps—for Riveda could move as noiselessly as a cat when he chose—until he bent and, with a single flexing of muscular arms, picked her up and set her on her feet.

"Well, Deoris? Do you consult the Oracle for your fate or mine?"

But she was unyielding in his arms, and after a moment he released her, puzzled.

"What is it, Deoris? Why are you angry with me?"

The last flicker of her body's resentment flared up. "I do not like to be mauled like that!"

Ceremoniously, the Adept inclined his head. "Forgive me. I shall remember."

"Oh, Riveda!" She flung her arms about him then, burrowing her head into the rough stuff of his robes, gripping him with a desperate dread. "Riveda, I am afraid!"

His arms tightened around her for a moment, strong, almost passionate. Then, with a certain sternness, he disengaged her clinging clasp. "Be not foolish, Deoris," he admonished. "You are no child, nor do I wish to treat you as one. Remember—I do not admire weakness in women. Leave that for the pretty wives in the back courts of the Temple of Light!"

Stung, Deoris lifted her chin. "Then we have both had a lesson today!"

Riveda stared at her a moment, then laughed aloud. "Indeed!" he exclaimed. "That is more like it. Well then. I have come to take you to the Grey Temple." As she hung back a little, he smiled and touched her cheek. "You need not fear—the foul sorcerer who threw you into illusion that previous time has been exorcized; ask, if you dare, what befell him! Be assured, no one will dare to meddle with the mind of my chosen novice!"

Reassured, she followed him, and he continued, abridging his long stride to correspond with her steps, "You have seen one of our ceremonies, as an outsider. Now you shall see the rest. Our Temple is mostly a place of experiment, where each man works separately, as he will, to develop his own powers."

Deoris could understand this, for in the Priest's Caste great emphasis was placed on self-perfection. But she wondered for what sins the Magicians strove. ...

He answered her unspoken question. "For absolute self-mastery, first of all; the body and mind must be harnessed and brought into subjugation by—certain disciplines. Then each man works alone, to master sound, or color, or light, or animate things—whatever he chooses—with the powers inherent in his own body and mind. We call ourselves Magicians, but there is no magic; there is only vibration. When a man can attune his body to any vibration, when he can master the vibrations of sound so that rock bursts asunder, or think one color into another, that is not magic. He who masters himself, masters the Universe."

As they passed beneath the great archway which spanned the bronze doors of the Grey Temple, he motioned to her to precede him; the bodiless voice challenged in unknown syllables, and Riveda called back. As they stepped through the doors, he added, in an undertone, "I will teach you the words of admission, Deoris, so that you will have access here even in my absence."

II

The great dim room seemed more vast than before, being nearly empty. Instinctively, Deoris looked for the niche where she had seen the Man with Crossed Hands—but the recess in the wall was hidden with grey veils Nevertheless she recalled another shrine, deep in the bowels of the earth, and could not control a shudder.

Riveda said in her ear, "Know you why the Temple is grey, why we wear grey?"

She shook her head, voiceless.

"Because," he went on, "color is in itself vibration, each color having a vibration of its own. Grey allows vibration to be transmitted freely, without the interference of color. Moreover, black absorbs light into itself, and white reflects light and augments it; grey does neither, it merely permits the true quality of the light to be seen as it is." He fell silent again, and Deoris wondered if his words had been symbolic as well as scientific.

In one corner of the enormous chamber, five young chelas were grouped in a circle, standing in rigidly unnatural poses and intoning, one by one, sounds that made Deoris's head ache. Riveda listened for a moment, then said, "Wait here. I want to speak to them."

She stood motionless, watching as he approached the chelas and spoke to them, vehemently but in a voice pitched so low she could not distinguish a word. She looked around the Temple.

She had heard horrible tales about this place—tales of self-torture, the saji women, licentious rites—but there was nothing fearful here. At a little distance from the group of chelas, three young girls sat watching, all three younger than Deoris, with loose short hair, their immature bodies saffron-veiled and girdled with silver. They sat cross-legged, looking weirdly graceful and relaxed.

Deoris knew that the saji were recruited mostly from the outcastes, the nameless children born unacknowledged, who were put out on the city wall to die of exposure—or be found by the dealers in girl slaves. Like all the Priest's Caste, Deoris believed that the saji were harlots or worse, that they were used in rituals whose extent was limited only by the imagination of the teller. But these girls did not look especially vicious or degenerate. Two, in fact, were extremely lovely; the third had a hare-lip which marred her young face, but her body was dainty and graceful as a dancer's. They talked among themselves in low chirping tones, and they all used their hands a great deal as they spoke, with delicately expressive gestures that bespoke long training.

Looking away from the saji girls, Deoris saw the woman Adept she had seen before. From Karahama she had heard this woman's name: Maleina. In the Grey-robe sect she stood second only to Riveda, but it was said that Riveda and Maleina were bitter enemies for some reason still unknown to Deoris.

Today, the cowl was thrown back from Maleina's head; her hair, previously concealed, was flaming red. Her face was sharp and gaunt, with a strange, ascetic, fine-boned beauty. She sat motionless on the stone floor. Not an eyelash flickered, nor a hair stirred. In her cupped hands she held something bright which flickered light and dark, light and dark, as regularly as a heartbeat; it was the only thing about her that seemed to live.

Not far away, a man clad only in a loincloth stood gravely on his head. Deoris had to stifle an uncontrollable impulse to giggle, but the man's thin face was absolutely serious.

And not five feet from Deoris, a little boy about seven years old was lying on his back, gazing at the vaulted ceiling, breathing with deep, slow regularity. He did not seem to be doing anything except breathing; he was so relaxed that it made Deoris sleepy to look at him, although his eyes were wide-open and clearly alert. He did not appear to move a single muscle ... After several minutes, Deoris realized that his head was several inches off the floor. Fascinated, she continued to watch until he was sitting bolt upright, and yet at no instant had she actually seen the fraction of an inch's movement, or seen him flex a single muscle. Abruptly, the little boy shook himself like a puppy and, bounding to his feet, grinned widely at Deoris, a gamin, little boyish grin very much at variance with the perfect control he had been exercising. Only then did Deoris recognize him: the silver-gilt hair, the pointed features were those of Demira. This was Karahama's younger child, Demira's brother.

Casually, the little boy walked toward the group of chelas where Riveda was still lecturing. The Adept had pulled his grey cowl over his head and was holding a large bronze gong suspended in midair. One by one, each of the five chelas intoned a curious syllable; each made the gong vibrate faintly, and one made it emit a most peculiar ringing sound. Riveda nodded, then handed the gong to one of the boys, and turning toward it, spoke a single deep-throated syllable.

The gong began to vibrate; then clamored a long, loud brazen note as if struck repeatedly by a bar of steel. Again Riveda uttered the bass syllable; again came the gong's metallic threnody. As the chelas stared, Riveda laughed, flung back his cowl and walked away, pausing a moment to put his hand on the small boy's head and ask him some low-voiced questions Deoris could not hear.

The Adept returned to Deoris. "Well, have you seen enough?" he asked, and drew her along until they were in the grey corridor. Many, many doors lined the hallway, and at the centers of several of them a ghostly light flickered. "Never enter a room where a light is showing," Riveda murmured; "it means someone is within who does not wish to be disturbed—or someone it would be dangerous to disturb. I will teach you the sound that causes the light; you will need to practice uninterrupted sometimes."

Finding an unlighted door, Riveda opened it with the utterance of an oddly unhuman syllable, which he taught her to speak, making her repeat it again and again until she caught the double pitch of it, and mastered the trick of making her voice ring in both registers at once. Deoris had been taught singing, of course, but she now began to realize how very much she still had to learn about sound. She was used to the simple-sung tones which produced light in the Library, and other places in the Temple precincts, but this—!

Riveda laughed at her perplexity. "These are not used in the Temple of Light in these days of decadence," he said, "for only a few can master them. In the old days, an Adept would bring his chela here and leave him enclosed in one of these cells—to starve or suffocate if he could not speak the word that would free him. And so they assured that no unfit person lived to pass on his inferiority or stupidity. But now—" He shrugged and smiled. "I would never have brought you here, if I did not believe you could learn."

She finally managed to approximate the sound which opened the door of solid stone, but as it swung wide, Deoris faltered on the threshold. "This—this room," she whispered, "it is horrible!"

He smiled, noncommittally. "All unknown things are fearful to those who do not understand them. This room has been used for the initiation of saji while their power is being developed. You are sensitive, and sense the emotions that have been experienced here. Do not be afraid, it will soon be dispelled."

Deoris raised her hands to her throat, to touch the crystal amulet there; it felt comfortingly familiar.

Riveda saw, but misinterpreted the gesture, and with a sudden softening of his harsh face he drew her to him. "Be not afraid," he said gently, "even though I seem at times to forget your presence. Sometimes my meditations take me deep into my mind, where no one else can reach. And also—I have been long alone, and I am not used to the presence of—one like you. The women I have known—and there have been many, Deoris—have been saji, or they have been—just women. While you, you are ..." He fell silent, gazing at her intently, as if he would absorb her every feature into him.

Deoris was, at first, only surprised, for she had never before known Riveda to be so obviously at a loss for words. She felt her whole identity softening, pliant in his hands. A flood of emotion overwhelmed her and she began softly to cry.

With a gentleness she had never known he possessed, Riveda took her to him, deliberately, not smiling now. "You are altogether beautiful," he said, and the simplicity of the words gave them meaning and tenderness all but unimaginable. "You are made of silk and fire."

III

Deoris was to treasure those words secretly in her heart during the many bleak months that followed, for Riveda's moods of gentleness were more rare than diamonds, and days of surly remoteness inevitably followed. She was to gather such rare moments like jewels on the chain of her inarticulate and childlike love, and guard them dearly, her only precious comfort in a life that left her heart solitary and yearning, even while her questing mind found satisfaction.

Riveda, of course, took immediate steps to regularize her position in regard to himself. Deoris, who had been born into the Priest's Caste, could not formally be received into the Grey-robe sect; also she was an apprenticed Priestess of Caratra and had obligations there. The latter obstacle Riveda disposed of quite easily, in a few words with the High Initiates of Caratra. Deoris, he told them, had already mastered skills far beyond her years in the Temple of Birth; he suggested it might be well for her to work exclusively among the Healers for a time, until her competence in all such arts equalled her knowledge of midwifery. To this the Priestesses were glad to agree; they were proud of Deoris, and it pleased them that she had attracted the attention of a Healer of such skill as Riveda.

So Deoris was legitimately admitted into the Order of Healers, as even a Priest of Light might be, and recognized there as Riveda's novice.

Soon after this, Domaris fell ill. In spite of every precaution she went into premature labor and, almost three months too soon, gave painful birth to a girl child who never drew breath. Domaris herself nearly died, and this time, Mother Ysouda, who had attended her, made the warning unmistakable: Domaris must never attempt to bear another child.

Domaris thanked the old woman for her counsel, listened obediently to her advice, accepted the protective runes and spells given her, and kept enigmatic silence. She grieved long hours in secret for the baby she had lost, all the more bitterly because she had not really wanted this child at all... . She was privately certain that her lack of love for Arvath had somehow frustrated her child's life. She knew the conviction to be an absurd one, but she could not dismiss it from her mind.

She recovered her strength with maddening slowness. Deoris had been spared to nurse her, but their old intimacy was gone almost beyond recall. Domaris lay silent for hours, quiet and sad, tears sliding weakly down her white face, often holding Micail with a hungry tenderness. Deoris, though she tended her sister with an exquisite competence, seemed abstracted and dreamy. Her absentmindedness puzzled and irritated Domaris, who had protested vigorously against allowing Deoris to work with Riveda in the first place but had only succeeded in alienating her sister more completely.

Only once Domaris tried to restore their old closeness. Micail had fallen asleep in her arms, and Deoris bent to take him, for the heavy child rolled about and kicked in his sleep, and Domaris still could not endure careless handling. She smiled up into the younger girl's face and said, "Ah, Deoris, you are so sweet with Micail, I cannot wait to see you with a child of your own in your arms!"

Deoris started and almost dropped Micail before she realized Domaris had spoken more or less at random; but she could not keep back her own overflowing bitterness. "I would rather die!" she flung at Domaris out of her disturbed heart.

Domaris looked up reproachfully, her lips trembling. "Oh, my sister, you should not say such wicked things—"

Deoris threw the words at her like a curse: "On the day I know myself with child, Domaris, I will throw myself into the sea!"

Domaris cried out in pain, as if her sister had struck her—but although Deoris instantly flung herself to her knees beside Domaris, imploring pardon for her thoughtless words, Domaris said no more; nor did she again speak to Deoris except with cool, reserved formality. It was many years before the impact of those wounding, bitter words left her heart.